


Near Death

by NyleahsRhyme



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Clem is AJ's mom and you can't tell me otherwise, Gen, Hurt Clementine (Walking Dead), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm so tired, LITERALLY, Light Angst, My First Work in This Fandom, One-Legged Clementine (Walking Dead), She's there but she's asleep, Violet has a talk with AJ about his mom, this is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 13:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyleahsRhyme/pseuds/NyleahsRhyme
Summary: Two days after coming back from James' barn, Clementine still hasn't woken up and AJ is getting worried. Just when AJ needs someone to comfort him, Violet happens to walk into their room and they have a talk about what happened in the barn.





	Near Death

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't specify whether or not this is a 'save Louis' or 'save Violet' aftermath nor did I specify a romance. I personally ship Violetine (I love Louis, don't get me wrong) but this fic has little to do with their relationship so it's up to interpretation. Hope you guys like it!

       “Clem?” AJ held her hand tightly as she lay on the bed. It had only been two days since he had returned her to the school, and he hadn’t left her side since. Every few hours he would call her name to check if she was still sleeping, but each time he would be met by the same response: silence. “Ruby came in today. She changed your bandages.”

       He sighed when he yet again heard no response and began fiddling with her fingers. He ran his small hands over her knuckles and across the stump of her missing ring finger. He had been there when she had lost it, but he didn’t remember it at all. He had been much too young to understand what had happened at the time, and even though she had told him the story years later, he still had trouble imagining it. Despite his limited knowledge about the missing appendage, he was reminded each and every time he saw it that he was the one that caused it.

       His eyes traveled to her newly amputated leg. He had been the cause of that as well, but looking it felt different than looking at her finger. She had lost her finger because she was trying to protect him, she had lost her leg because  _ he _ was protecting _ her _ . Although it sounded strange, something about that small difference made him feel much worse about the loss of her finger than the loss of her leg. At least now he knew he had the ability to protect her the way she had always protected him.

       “Ah...” A voice from the door startled AJ and he dropped Clementine’s hand as he instinctively reached for the gun that he quickly found out was not on him. He calmed down almost instantly as soon as he saw Violet peeking her head through the crack of the door.

       “Hey, Violet,” he said, easing back into the soothing touch of his surrogate mother’s hand.

       “Hey, little man,” she replied back, scratching the nape of her neck awkwardly.

       “Clem hasn’t woken up yet. Why doesn’t she want to wake up?” AJ asked. His voice was shaky, as if he was about to break down crying or had just finished crying. He frowned and turned his head to face the blonde girl at the door with a hapless expression plastered on his face. 

       Violet sighed, wincing at the young boy’s words as she was not entirely sure how to answer him. “No, no, it’s not that she doesn’t want to, AJ…”

       She was quiet for a few seconds before she made her way to the edge of Clementine's bed. She kneeled down in front of her and put a hand on AJ's back, moving it in small circles on the fabric of the red leather jacket the boy was wearing in order to offer him some comfort. She never really saw herself as being good with children or people in general, but she felt compelled to offer her shoulder for AJ to cry on if he needed her.

       AJ was an incredibly strong kid. That fact was clear the moment he came to the school. Even at the young age of six, he had no doubt seen more horrific things than anyone within the sheltered walls of the school ever had. And it was for that exact reason that Violet felt the need to offer her support, because no matter how strong they both appear to be, they can't ignore the trauma they have experienced out on the road.

       "Ruby said it was because her body is fighting off the bad stuff, but why can't she do that while she's awake?"

       "Because fighting it makes her tired, buddy. She wants to wake up and see you, but she's too tired to do that right now." Violet took her hand off of AJ's back and placed it on the bed near Clementine's fingertips.

      "I don't like it when Clem is tired," AJ said, "she was tired in the barn too and she couldn't get up even though she tried to. Is it like that? She's trying to get up but she can't?"

       There was a distinct sense of panic in the boy's tone and his eyebrows dipped with worry. Violet tried her best not to tear up at the expression AJ was making. It reminded her of the face little kids would make when they were lost, or the one new students had when they first come to the school, prompting them to cling to their mothers with desperation.

       "Yeah, it's kind of like that, but this time she'll get up. She'll wake up because she knows we all need her, right?"

       "...she told me that I don't need her anymore, back in James' barn... but I think she was wrong."

       "Hell, yeah she was wrong. We'd all be fucking dead if it weren't for her."

       "Swear."

       "Sorry," Violet chuckled.

       Violet shook her head and gazed at Clementine's face. She looked content, peaceful, even. She had the face of someone who had fell asleep laying in a sunny meadow, completely unaware of everything going on around them. Seeing her like that would have almost felt nice, if it weren't for the fact that her leg had just been chopped off because of a bite. Violet briefly wondered if she would wake up confused, thinking that she died in the barn with AJ in front of her.

       "AJ, can you tell me what else she told you in the barn?" Violet was unsure whether it was rude to be asking this or not. She wanted to know the things Clementine had said in what she thought was her last moments, but the blonde didn't want to disrespect her if what she said was for AJ's ears only. She wouldn't want to interfere with a mother's last words to her son.

       "I don't know… Clem said a lot of things that she was wrong about, but most of the stuff she said just made me sad."

       "It's okay. You don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

       AJ hummed softly, contemplating what Violet just said. "Um, I think it's fine. I just… I don't want to say the really sad parts."

       "Alright, you don't need to, kiddo."

       "She said that I needed to remember the rules, but the first rule is to never go alone, and she was telling me to break that rule." AJ furrowed his brow and pouted angrily. "She was wrong about that and… it made me mad, I think. Why did she tell me to do that?"

       "Clem thought she was dying, AJ. She wanted you to get back safely even if she didn't."

       The young boy sighed deeply, relaxing his face and slumping his shoulders. "I asked her to bite me, but she wouldn't."

       Violet's eyes widened and snapped to look AJ in the eye. "What? Why would you ask her that? AJ, you would have died!"

       “I-I just… I didn’t want to be alone. Clem has been with me as long as I can remember. She took care of me since I was, like, really little! She said that my first word was her name!” He squeezed the brunette’s hand tightly and he squinted his eyes as if he were in pain. “And... James said a part of people might still be inside of the monsters, I think Clem called it a ‘soul’. So, if Clem bit me, then we could still be together even if she became a monster. We would just be together in a different way, like the couple at the train station.”

       Violet sucked in a shaky breath. “Oh, AJ…”

       "She wouldn't do it though."

       "I'm glad she wouldn't. I can't imagine losing both of you."

       "She wanted me to kill her, but I couldn't do it... just like she wouldn't bite me."

       Violet cast her gaze down to her knees, unable to look at the young boy in front of her. His words weren’t that surprising. She had somewhat expected Clementine to have a plan that she wanted AJ to follow if she ever got bit. It was something that needed to be talked about in this world. But even knowing that, it was hard to hear that Clementine had to beg her six-year-old son to kill her before her body unwillingly tried to kill him.

       “Both of you didn’t want to be the cause of the other’s death. That makes sense. You did good, AJ. You did the right thing, but it’s going to be hard on her when she wakes up and we need to be there for her.”

       “She’s going to be worried about running. She told me that she was worried about holding things when she lost her finger, so she’s going to be worried about having to run.”

       Violet sighed and pushed herself up off of the ground, leaning her hand on her knee as leverage. She shot her hand into AJ’s hair and ruffled it a bit before she turned his head away from Clementine and towards her. She looked him in the eye with a soft smile on her lips. “Well, you’re just going to have to tell her that she doesn’t need to worry about running because she made it so you guys don’t have to anymore.”

       AJ returned her smile and gave her a decisive nod. “Yeah! I’ll tell her that we found the home we’ve been trying to find and that it’s my turn to protect her!”

       “Okay,  _ Goofball _ .”

       “... I really miss that name.”

  
  



End file.
